


Gold

by The_trash_cannot



Series: The Masks of Mairon [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, Brainwashing, Cousin Incest, Dreams, Fingon is too good for this, I promise I like Mae i just like writing bad things happening to him, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kinky torture, M/M, Mairon is a dream voyeur, Poor Maedhros, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture, is that a tag?, poor fingon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-03-26 09:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19003060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_trash_cannot/pseuds/The_trash_cannot
Summary: Dreams have a way of taking what we want most to see and twisting it into a horror we can’t shut our eyes against.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this fan art by EPH-SAN1634  
> https://www.deviantart.com/eph-san1634/art/Maedhros-Waking-from-the-dream-to-the-nightmare-618297595

Maitimo felt a warmth over his skin.

He opened his eyes, sighing as he saw golden light filtering through trees above his head. He was laying on some wooded hill, much like the ones that had surrounded Formenos. Was he there?

He looked at the light again. Treelight? No, sunlight. He must be in Endorë, then.

He reached his hand up as if to twine the light around his fingers like strands of hair. As he lowered it again, his hand instinctively found its way to a braid.

Dark, neat, run through with twisted gold ribbons put there by himself. His eyes followed the braid to the mass of hair and sparkling blue eyes beyond.

“Findekáno,” The word slipped from his mouth like a plea for water from a man dying of thirst.

Fingon didn’t answer, but trailed his fingers light as a breath over Maitimo’s cheek. 

“Findekáno,” It felt so natural to be here. To be warmed by the sunlight, to have his hand enveloped by Findekáno’s, the other arm being used as a pillow for his love’s head. Again Fingon remained mute.

“Findekáno?” Something tugged at the back of his mind, trying to drag him from Findekáno’s lovely embrace. He resisted, sinking deeper into the feeling of that moment, the feeling of just him and Fingon.

For a moment, Maitimo’s vision seemed to blur, distorting the scene.

All of Maitimo’s instincts screamed that something was  _ wrong. _

Findekáno blinked, and his lovely blue eyes were replaced with a terrible, unnatural yellow, the color of cursed gold.

No. No, no nono. 

Maitimo tried to pull away, but his arm was numb from Fingon -  _ not _ Fingon resting on it.

“Findekáno!” No other word would come from his throat. Just Findekáno, only Findekáno. 

_ Findekáno’s not here!  _ His mind screamed. He hadn’t seen Findekáno since he and his brothers had sailed across the sea and his father had burned those cursed ships. They had never been together under the light of the sun, for the sun had risen after their sundering, with Fingon looking east as the newborn sun crested over the land where his love was sundered from him.

“Findekáno,” Maitimo’s wail turned into a quiet sob.

Fingon opened his mouth for the first time. Maitimo scrambled backwards, trying to crawl on his numb sword-arm. This wasn’t Findekáno.

Findekáno did not have glowing gold eyes, and most certainly did not have blood-stained fangs.

“You were calling for him again.”

Maedhros’s eyes snapped open, his chest heaving from both the fright of the dream and the sudden shock of being vertical after having been lying in his mind.

He looked to his left, where on a ledge those same gold eyes and bloodied fanged grin that had perverted his dream. “ _ Findekáno! Findekáno! _ ” Mairon mocked. 

Maedhros snarled at Mairon as best he could while dangling from his wrist and fighting back tears. It wasn’t the first time the Maia had invaded his dreams, but few had been so personal. The only other who had known the depth of his relationship with Ñolofinwë’s eldest son was Makalaurë. Now he would be lucky if all of Angband didn’t know.

“Honestly, I really don’t know what you see in this Findekáno.” Mairon was examining his pointed nails, looking bored. “I do hope I get to meet him. Perhaps he’ll try to rescue you,” Mairon’s eyes flashed at the look which crossed Maedhros’s face. “I could move you to a cell together,” He trailed his hand across Maedhros’s cheek. “I won’t hurt him, not at first. I’ll let him watch just how badly I hurt you, and all the while he’ll be so powerless, knowing he can help neither you nor himself.”

Mairon laughed at how Maedhros struggled at that. The captive High King was a never ending source of amusement. Mairon never tired of the look on his face as he mused about which son of Fëanor’s sons he would like to have as the next guest.

“Oh, come now, Nelyo,” Mairon purred the nickname in a way that sent shivers down his spine. “Wouldn’t you like some company?”

“I would see you in chains,  Þ auron.” He raised his hoarse voice, faking the confidence a king should have.

Mairon’s eyes flashed. That was the only warning before his pointed nails raked across Maedhros’s cheek, down his neck and over his bony chest. The elf squeezed shut his eyes as warm blood welled to the surface. 

Maedhros felt a hand around his neck, felt those golden eyes burning into him. He heard a rattling of chains above him, and suddenly he was supported only by the hand around his throat. His numb hand fell from where it had hung above him, shoulder protesting the strain of movement. 

“Open your eyes, Nelyo.”

He did.

“Come now, then. I’m very disappointed you’ve forgotten what I taught in your last lesson. I’ll need to refresh it.” Mairon attached a shackle to the one hand Maedhros had free, and pulled him along. 

Soon, Maedhros found himself kneeling, arms pulled out taut behind him and chained to the floor. Arrayed on a table just above his eye level were Mairon’s tools. Not his forge tools, hammers and tongs and chisels; but tools for his entertainment. Scalpels and hot iron rods and bottles of poison and perfectly serrated knives, all of which he kept scrupulously clean and orderly, which somehow made it more horrible. 

This was not the scattered hoard of a madman. This was one who took pleasure in the smallest details of torment and agony. 

Maedhros knew those tools, knew their bite well.

The first few cuts were merely retraces of older ones, ones he could manage with steady breathing.

But then it was his ears. It hadn’t taken Mairon many captives to realize the sensitivity of elven ears and how to cause them the most pain.

“Don’t make this difficult, Maitimo. Don’t make me bring Lord Melkor into this.”

Maedhros bared his teeth, glaring though one eye was blinded by a trickle of his blood. “Go. Run and get your  _ master _ , whore.” 

The sheer rage in Mairon’s face was enough to make Maedhros wish he had never opened his mouth. Mairon grabbed his matted crimson hair, drawing it out behind him. He shuddered as he heard Mairon’s voice next to his ear.

“You will break, elf.”

Suddenly, the tension from his pulled hair was gone. As was its familiar weight. He saw Mairon step back, holding a knife in one hand and his hair in another.

He would have cried. He would have screamed. He would have raised his voice like his father and cursed all of Angband. 

But he didn’t.

He sat. And watched.

When he cried out at the bite of Mairon’s torturous tools, it was a cry for mercy, not defiance or the fire of Fëanor. 

When he wept, it wasn’t a few noble tears tracing gracefully down his cheek. It was pathetic, ugly sobbing.

 

“I’ll send you to a cell tonight.”

“Thank you, Lord Mairon.” His voice was flat, perfectly submissive, just a little hoarse from how he screamed. When he stood, his shoulders were hunched and his eyes cast down. 

This was not Maedhros Nelyafinwë, High King of the Noldor. This was not Maitimo Russandol, son of Nerdanel the Wise. This was not the eldest son of Fëanor.

This was a thrall of Angband, just one of thousands.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fingon has several unwelcome surprises.

“Excellent work, Mairon.”

“Thank you, Master.” Mairon preened, golden eyes glowing just a bit brighter.

Melkor continued to prod at the deathly still form sitting in the center of the room. The red fuzz on his head betrayed how his hair must have looked, before coming here. He had been feisty at first, fighting and insulting his captors at every opportunity. So adamant that he wouldn’t be broken. But even as a son of Fëanor, trained to hunt and forge and fight, he couldn’t escape the fact that he was soft.

Before the kinslaying of Alqualondë, which Melkor had been utterly delighted to hear details of, Maedhros had rarely so much as heard a word said in anger in his life. So he was crumbling by the time they captured him. Father dead, brothers battle-scarred, and he himself distraught at what he had abandoned by taking the ships.

Food had never been scarce in Aman. Going without it had done wonders for breaking him. Next, riddling him with scars so he couldn’t ever be without the thought of where he was and who he now belonged to.

Finally, his hair had been the final step. Hair was a symbol among elves, stronger than any other. Without his hair, Maedhros could never return to his kind, to his family.

And that truly, deliciously  _ broke  _ him.

And once he was broken, he could be of use to Angband.

And, of course, broken as he was, he thought nothing of it when he heard a silvery ( _~~familiar~~ ) _ voice scream and Melkor’s dark laughter erupt from somewhere far above his cell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Consciousness came slowly, an undeniable pull towards thoughts that demanded to be heard and hurts that demanded to be felt. 

Fingon tried to sit up, wincing at how his muscles tensed around the ribs that had likely been broken when Morgoth had swatted him from Thorondor’s back. He prayed that at least the eagle had made it out. 

Fingon looked around his cell, expecting empty stone. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw a prone form lying close by him, huddled up like a child, naked and bald save for a ruddy peach fuzz over his head, with ribs and pelvis jutting sharply out. The next thing he noticed about the person next to him was nearly as jarring as the person themself. An oath mark.

He saw the oath marks of Fëanor’s sons when he had arrived in Beleriand. Ghastly Fëanorian stars, made of smooth black lines like a tattoo that had appeared the instant they all had taken the oath, and, as far as they could tell, were permanent. Could it be...

“Maitimo?”

The figure jumped awake at the sound. He turned, crawling away from Fingon as best he could with bound hands. His grey eyes were wide and wild, full of fear and confusion.  _ Grey? _

The way his heart constricted at seeing Maitimo bloody, bruised, and scared was a worse pain than his ribs. Still, he inched himself back, doing everything he could to not rush in and scare him again. 

The elves studied each other, and Fingon realized with a horrible jolt that Maitimo did not know him.  There was no flicker of recognition in his eyes, not even the slightest sign that this was the elf he had grown up with. Those eyes that used to be as blue as Fingon’s own and were now a sickly grey.

“You don’t need to be scared.” He tried to make himself look small, adopting the voice he had used when his brothers and sister were children. Fingon recalled Maitimo speaking those exact words to him when they first met. He had been so small, hiding behind his father’s legs. And Maitimo, gangly and not yet full grown, had crouched down to look him in the eye and say those exact words.

Fingon moved from where he was sitting to kneel, edging a bit closer to Maitimo

“What is your name? Do you know?” 

“Zabraz.” Fingon blinked, feeling like Maedhros had slapped him. He knew the foul speech that Morgoth had crafted for his equally foul creatures; it would be hard to interrogate an orc if you couldn’t understand them. He knew what that word meant.  _ Empty _ .

“Oh, Nelyo…” Maedhros winced as if struck. Through their connection, weakened but still there, Fingon could see what thought haunted him.

_ “Oh, Nelyo,” Mairon purred. “They would never accept you like this. You’re gone, you’re lost. They don’t want a broken little thing like you.” _

_ He didn’t even know who ‘they’ were, but the words stung. They didn’t want him, they wouldn’t have him, they didn’t love him. He couldn’t move. Mairon’s hands grabbed at him harshly, leaving red marks that would purple later. _

_ He couldn’t move. Mairon’s weight was pressing on him, he was suffocating, his body hurt.  _

“Maitimo!” 

Maedhros pried open his eyes again, registering a face above him. 

And somehow, he knew that those blue eyes were the most wonderful thing in the world. He felt another mind press to his, achingly familiar and nothing like how Lord Mairon rooted through his thoughts and memories. 

He felt a soft caress of wind, saw a deer down the length of an arrow, heard the sound of hammer falls in a forge, he saw a woman with beautiful red hair  _ so much like his own. _ He heard laughter and saw blue skies at the same time as he heard screaming and saw a night tinged red by an inferno on a shore. 

Maitimo gasped for breath, eyes wide open, but this time, they did not hold fear. Some confusion, bewilderment, even. But it was clearly Maitimo.

The air was still as their eyes stayed fixed on each other. So many things passed between them that it was hard to register. Confusion? Apprehension? Curiosity? Longing? Lov-

A distant sound of heavy footsteps sliced through whatever had been burgeoning between them and moved closer with every passing second. 

Maitimo’s eyes widened with recognition and fear. He pulled his right hand close to his chest, and Fingon couldn’t help but note that it moved sluggishly compared to the other. He pressed himself into the wall, hoping to become a part of it so that the cruel eyes might sweep over him.

But there was no such luck, and when the door swung open, Maitimo was fixed under a horrible glare. 

“Are you enjoying your company, pet?” A tall man with flaming red hair cooed. Maitimo crawled back a few inches. The man bared a few pointed teeth in a smile at that. Then his eyes shifted to Fingon.

He wanted to squirm under the invasiveness of the strange man’s gaze, but he held himself firmly in place, tilting up his chin. The man seemed undeterred, raking his eyes over the Fingon’s body in an almost appraising way. 

“Come.” The man nodded his head towards the door. “Your master wishes to see you.”

Fingon stood, but made no move to leave his cousin’s side. 

“I said, _come_.” The edge in his voice told Fingon that any threats would be followed through on, so he stepped forward, casting another glance at his cousin. The man rolled his eyes. “Leave the whore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is finally up! Thank you so much to everyone who commented, you made this happen.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fingon suffers. (Thats the whole plot, folks)

“Kano?”

Fingon turned on his side towards the tap on his arms, hoping Maitimo was asking for him and wouldn’t beg for Kanofinwë. But Maitimo crawled into his waiting arms with no protest, so thankfully he was the one. 

(That or Maitimo’s fevered brain couldn’t tell the difference between different sets of dark hair and blue eyes. Fingon chose to believe the former.)

Fingon held his cousin close as a shiver passed through them both, small puffs of wispy breath materializing. He’d had time to recover from the Ice before he’d tried to rescue Maitimo, but Angband had a way of seeping into every crack of your mind, smothering you and plunging you under. Fingon counted it as a miracle that he hadn’t gone as mad as Maitimo.

But then, would he know if he had?

The two of them had been left thankfully alone for the most part, since Fingon’s introduction to the world of horrors of Angband. After first meeting the Masters of the House _ , _ Fingon had been sent to the mines for several days.

He couldn’t remember much of it, really. The entire memory felt upside down, someone shivering from hypothermia right in front of him while heat blisters burst and oozed on his own skin.

When he’d returned to the cell that they’d shared since, Maitimo was covered in red lines like he’d been tied down and whipped. They didn’t mention what else it looked like had happened.

They didn’t mention much of anything, come to think of it. Maitimo would babble some combination of Quenya, Black Speech, and nonsense as he slept, but while waking he was near mute. Though Fingon wasn’t much better off; his lungs were scorched and parched from the constant heat of the cell.

Hadn’t it been cold before? No, nothing could be cold again, not with heat like this. Yet Maitimo shivered, so Fingon held their burning bodies close. 

Because that’s what he does, isn’t it? Maitimo’s suffered, isn’t it his job to heal him? To save him? To warm him with his own fever and wash him with his own blood? Isn’t that was he has to do?

But then, why did it hurt so much to help him? And why couldn’t he help himself without drowning in guilt? Why did it have to be him, and why was he even thinking that? Shouldn’t he be grateful Maitimo’s even here to be healed? Shouldn’t he want to put him above everything else?

But it’s so cold now, and so hard to think. Maybe if he sleeps it will be better. Maybe when he wakes Maitimo will be like he used to, tall and beautiful and dancing under the trees.

Maybe he could be anywhere but here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter chapter this time, and in a different style than normal, but I wanted to get it out soon.


End file.
